A Grandson Casts A Kind Eye On Picasso

By ALAN RIDING

Published: December 9, 2004

Among Pablo Picasso's myriad portraits, one image seems incomplete. Three decades after his death, while his stature as a giant of 20th-century art is beyond dispute, there is still no consensus about Picasso the man. Was he kind or cruel? Was he generous or mean? Did he love women or merely use them? Did he become a Communist out of conviction or convenience?

For his heirs and descendants, these questions have been troubling.

Now, in a new book, one of Picasso's grandchildren has tried to reassure his family. ''Picasso: The Real Family Story'' (Prestel) is not, however, a memoir. Its author is Olivier Widmaier Picasso, whose mother, Maya, was born to Picasso's mistress Marie-Th?se Walter. The younger Picasso was 10 when his grandfather died, but the two never met. Now, at 42, he has set out to answer questions that he, too, has heard since he was a child.

Many accounts of Picasso the man already exist. As early as 1933 a former mistress, Fernande Olivier, wrote ''Picasso and His Friends.'' In 1964 Fran?se Gilot, who lived with the artist for a decade and was mother to his children Claude and Paloma, co-wrote ''Life With Picasso'' with Carlton Lake. And in 1988 Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington's ''Picasso: Creator and Destroyer'' portrayed the artist's public brilliance and private darkness.

But the book that most distressed the family was a memoir published three years ago by Marina Picasso, the daughter of Paulo, Picasso's son by his first marriage to Olga Koklova. In ''Picasso: My Grandfather'' (Riverhead) she describes Picasso as an evil genius whose ''brilliant oeuvre demanded human sacrifices,'' notably of those closest to him, including her father; her grandmother; her brother, Pablito, who killed himself; and herself.

Mr. Widmaier Picasso challenges his cousin, claiming her memory is defective and selective, distorted, he writes, by her parents' unhappy marriage and her long years of psychotherapy. With chapters on women, politics, family, money and death, his book addresses those aspects of Picasso's life that at one time or another have been considered controversial. Mr. Widmaier Picasso leans on the memories of his mother, who remained close to Picasso until his final years, but he said he also did extensive archival research and interviewed many surviving friends and acquaintances of the artist.

''I became a kind of journalist and detective,'' he explained in English in an interview in his mother's Left Bank apartment here.

One of his goals, it seems, is to help his family coexist with the shadow of Picasso. ''In a normal family, after the death of a grandfather, his image slowly fades and you have your own life,'' he said. ''In our situation, whatever we do, we still have the image of Pablo Picasso above us. It doesn't disappear. So because we benefit from his fame, his name, his fortune, I think we cannot live without Picasso. It is difficult to be 100 percent yourself.''

For him, though, this has also been a personal journey of discovery, starting with the telling reason he never met his grandfather: ''My mother did not want us to be part of the Picasso universe,'' he said.

As a boy he lived with Picasso on the walls of his parents' home, but he understood his grandfather's importance only after the artist died on April 8, 1973. ''For me, Picasso was born the day he died,'' he noted. The media quickly turned its attention to Picasso's fortune and family. Maya's married name, Widmaier, became associated with that of Picasso. For Olivier, nearly a teenager in 1973, everyone at school soon knew he was Picasso's grandson.

''My art teachers would hold up my drawings before the whole class and say: 'It's really nice. We all know where it comes from,''' Mr. Widmaier Picasso recalled. ''In truth, the drawings were horrible. But I became convinced I was an artist. I even took drawing as part of my school-leaving exams. My work did not carry my name and I was given a mark of 3 out of 20. That's when I decided to study law.''

The family was convulsed by successive dramas: the suicide in 1977 of Marie-Th?se Walter; the suicide in 1986 of Picasso's second wife, Jacqueline Roque. But while Mr. Widmaier Picasso added ''Picasso'' to his family name in 1986, he remained largely outside the clan. Only a decade ago the idea of producing a Picasso CD-ROM finally brought him into the family circle.

The intellectual property rights related to Picasso were being managed by his uncle, Claude Picasso, on behalf of the five heirs: Maya Widmaier; Paulo's children, Marina and Bernard Picasso; and Claude and Paloma Picasso. After Claude approved of the Picasso CD-ROM, Mr. Widmaier Picasso was hired as an outside consultant to the Picasso Succession on merchandising, which included licensing the Picasso name and signature for use on a Citroen car, which prompted fresh protests from Marina.

In his 344-page book, Mr. Widmaier Picasso seems intent, above all, in showing that his larger-than-life grandfather was anything but mean and cruel. ''The image of Picasso as a womanizer is easy when you concentrate 80 years of love and you imagine all those women together,'' he said. ''But I didn't see any cruel moment in these relationships.'' Still, he concedes, Picasso's women took second place to his art.

''Picasso's love life was the sine qua non of his work,'' Mr. Widmaier Picasso writes in the opening chapter, ''Women.'' ''Even when his hand was guided by political considerations alone, as in 'Guernica,' it was always the woman or feminine influences of the moment, sometimes competing ones, that gave human form to the figures in the work. Women were to Picasso what paint is to the brush: inseparable, essential, fatal.''

Mr. Widmaier Picasso dwells on his grandmother, Marie-Th?se Walter, who met Picasso in 1927 when she was 17 and became his principal muse for more than a decade. Even later in life they remained in touch by letter. ''That was her link to Picasso even though they were not together,'' Mr. Widmaier Picasso said. ''And this is probably why she killed herself after his death. She had only one man in her life and she had lost the blood of her life.''

In the chapter on money, Mr. Widmaier Picasso argues that Picasso financially supported family members long after he stopped seeing them in his final years. ''He fulfilled his natural obligations as spouse, companion, father and employer,'' he writes. As for politics, he notes, Picasso joined the Communist Party in 1944, but he distanced himself from Moscow in the 1950's and, in 1972, made a point of being photographed with the exiled Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

Having crisscrossed his grandfather's life, Mr. Widmaier Picasso concludes: ''Picasso's behavior begs a lot of questions, but it was he who supplied many of the answers.''

So, the author was asked, did he discover anything new about Picasso?

''Yes, his humanity,'' he said, ''and this humanity was probably most in evidence in the affection he had for his children.''

After the book came out in France two years ago, he said, he received thanks not only from his mother, ''who is not totally objective,'' but also from Claude and Paloma Picasso; Paulo's widow, Christine, and their son, Bernard; and Ms. Gilot. ''And I received absolutely no comment from Marina,'' he added, ''which is normal.''

Photos: Olivier Widmaier Picasso at home in Paris, with a work by Picasso, his grandfather, on the wall. (Photo by Steven Lyon)(pg. E1); Picasso, right, and his daughter Maya, born to his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, the grandmother of the author Olivier Widmaier Picasso. (Photo by Man Ray)(pg. E10)